Crisis of gas supply currently hampers daily generation of about 2000 megawatts of electricity, sources in the Bangladesh Power Development Board (BPDB) told Bangladesh Post. Power Cell sources said that such shortfall in production of electricity may affect in distribution of power to many areas in the country, however, the deficit would be more prominent during the coming peak summer when demand for power substantially increases.
Nevertheless, officials claimed that they would be able to overcome the shortfall. The officials also explained that PDB prefers generating electricity from gas as it is the cheapest option. Furnace oil and diesel are way too expensive.
Meanwhile, three coal-based power plants having total power production capacity of 3,840 MW, are under construction. Of them, the first unit of the Payra power plant started its generation on test basis. The second unit will go into operation, hopefully by June. The two units of the Rooppur nuclear power plant would start generation by 2023-2024.
BPDB official said that currently the country’s electricity demand is 9,000MW to 9,500MW, which will increase in summer and it may reached 14000MW. Engineer Md Belayet Hossain, Chairmen of BPDB told Bangladesh Post, “BAPEX assured that they will supply gas to the gas-based power plants when the electricity demand increases. So I think there will no load shedding during summer.”
`There are 136 power plants with total installed capacity of 19630MW of electricity and now its actual or derated capacity is 19107MW. Besides, 1160 MW of electricity is being imported from India and around 350MW of power is generated by renewable energy,’ according to BPDB.
BPDB sources said, it is not possible to generate 1959MW of electricity due to gas shortage. On the other hand, 164MW power is not being generated from hydropower plant due to low water level in Kaptai Lake. In addition, maintenance work is ongoing in some power plant. That’s why, a of total of 788MW power is not generated from there.
‘In this situation, electricity supply may hamper in some areas including Mymensingh and northern areas of the country,’ the official said.
When contact, Petrobangla Director (Operation & Mines) Engineer Mohammad Kamruzzaman claimed to Bangladesh Post, ‘There is no gas crisis. We are supplying gas to the power plants as per their demands. There is no power plant shut down due to gas shortage.”
According to Petrobangla’s daily gas supply report, currently the gas demand in power plant is 2196 mmcfd, whereas the amount of gas supplied is 1144.2mmcfd. Bangladesh is now producing around 3200mmcfd of gas including 600mmcfd R-LNG. But the present gas demand is more than 4,000mmcfd.
State Minister for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources Nasrul Hamid told the parliament that the total amount of extractable gas reserve in the country was 10.63 tcf and daily production rate was 2,570 mcf as of January 1 this year. The gas reserve will exhaust in 11 years if the current rate of production continues.
“Bangladesh Petroleum Exploration and Production Company Limited has taken initiative to dig two new wells to explore gas from 2019 to 2021, 13 wells from 2022 to 2030 and 20 wells from 2031 to 2041,” he said.
The Energy Division sources said that gas demand in power generation and industrial units including fertilizer production, is increasing gradually. On the other hand, the gas reserves in the country's own fields are gradually depleting. Against the backdrop of an ever-increasing gas demand, the government decided to import LNG in 2010 to meet the countrys dire energy deficit and finally the LNG import was started from 2018.
The country currently has two floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) with a total regasification capacity of 1 billion cubic feet per day - equal to about 7.5 million tonnes a year.
